A Retrospective on Software Engineering in Design Automation

We have observed the effect that software engineering can have on design automation throughout the four years of the Designer's Workbench (DWB) project. DWB is a design aids delivery system that interfaces the user to a variety of applications programs. This paper describes our experience in using various techniques and our conclusions about their value. The improvements that occurred in the second design iteration illustrate the effect of using a consistent methodology. The introduction of table-driven, finite state machines and software utilities provided an unusually adaptable and flexible environment for adding new applications. The resultant design aids delivery system is able to respond to the rapid changes that occur in the supported technologies and provide tools when needed rather than after the customers have completed their project.